BURST“In 2023, Tommy [Caldwell] and Alex [Honnold] tried the route. Tommy didn’t send, but Alex did,” says Connor Herson, who sent the Heart Route (5.13b/V10) on El Cap with Caldwell in early November.
Their ascent marks the “fourth or fifth ascent,” says Herson, referencing the first free ascent made by Mason Earle and the late Brad Gobright in June 2015. The route follows most of the original 1970 aid line established by Scott Davis and Chuck Kroger, combining delicate slabs and steep, endurance-style crack climbing before merging into Golden Gate (5.13a) for the final ten pitches.
This climb was Herson and Caldwell’s first time teaming up on El Cap.
This marks Herson’s third free ascent of El Cap, the first being the Nose when he was 15, followed by the Salathé Wall in 2022, and now the Heart Route. Caldwell has been freeing El Cap routes for decades.
Herson, who had never climbed Golden Gate, flashed its final crux pitches, including the 5.13a’s Golden Desert, The Move, and the A5 Traverse. Caldwell had previously freed Golden Gate in a day in June 2007.
After swapping leads on the Heart Route over several days—including inspecting and pre-hauling gear to Heart Ledges—Herson recounts, “I flashed all the hard climbing on Golden Gate. I was sending a free route on El Cap with one of my climbing heroes—it was just so fun!”
Heart Blast:
As with neighboring routes like the Salathé Wall and Muir Wall, the lower portions leading up to Heart Ledges—about 1,000 feet above the ground—are commonly known as “Blasts.” Free Blast begins the Salathé, Muir Blast starts the Muir Wall, and Heart Blast kicks off the Heart Route.
“The Heart Blast had two pitches that were particularly difficult,” Herson says of the back-to-back 5.13 sections. The first crux, pitch 6, involves a downward dyno where “the handholds are about 10 feet apart.”
“You’re pretty spread out—your right hand’s on nothing, and your left hand is on a positive crimp. The foothold you’re aiming for is about four feet to the right and slightly below your right foot. First, you jump onto your right foot and perch briefly with a bent knee, but you can’t stay there long because the wall is too steep. As you start to fall away, you reach toward the hold and catch it on your way down. It was definitely a weird process learning to trust that my shoulders wouldn’t rip out of their sockets when grabbing the hold.”
Pitch 7 is a 5.13a slab where “you’re basically standing on tiny dime-sized edges,” says Herson. “I think some holds have broken since the first free ascent, so we had to move a bolt to align with the current climbing line.”
Mason Earle wrote in the AAJ about this 26-pitch route: “Although the hardest single moves were on the [V10; pitch 6] Dub Step (which I free climbed but Brad could not due to being shorter), the biggest challenge was completing the steep and sustained climbing above.”
Above Heart Blast:
From Heart Ledges, the Heart Route intersects briefly with the Salathé Wall, including the downclimb into the offwidth Hollow Flake, a 5.10 pitch, and then branches back right onto the Heart Route via a 5.11 traverse and another 5.10 pitch. Next come the Heart Roofs: three consecutive 5.13b cracks and two 5.11 pitches before merging with Golden Gate.
The team bivied “at the top of the Heart, right below this huge roof and the next three crux pitches,” Herson says. “On the second day, we sent all three crux pitches—I onsighted the second one— fixed our ropes and descended back to camp. Then, on the third day, we jugged back up, left our haul bags behind, and pushed to the top.”
“The first pitch is a wild, steep crack, probably around 12-plus. It transitions into a pumpy section through pods and finishes on a thin splitter crack—that’s the crux. The next pitch is a long, pumpy 13b that starts in a corner on the right side of an elevator shaft. Eventually, the crack fades, forcing a switch to face climbing on bolts up to the anchor. The third crux pitch is short, maybe only 30 feet, but features a difficult boulder problem with funky, technical moves on an arête. After that, you’re through the main crux section.”
About climbing with Caldwell, Herson says, “He looks incredibly comfortable and completely in his element up there.”
“What a wild route, with some of the steepest climbing I’ve done on El Cap and a very thin slab,” Herson wrote on Instagram. “Also, I believe this makes Tommy the oldest free ascensionist of El Cap, at 46! Nice one, old man ;).”
The post November 2024: Herson and Caldwell Free El Cap’s Heart Route appeared first on Gripped Magazine.